


the heart wants what it wants.

by porcelainsimplicity



Series: i refuse to admit there was a beach divorce (aka all my charles/erik fics) [62]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelainsimplicity/pseuds/porcelainsimplicity
Summary: You got me sippin' on somethingI can't compare to nothingI've ever known, I'm hopingThat after this fever I'll surviveI know I'm acting a bit crazyStrung out, a little bit hazyHand over heart, I'm prayingThat I'm gonna make it out aliveor: It's a very important anniversary in his relationship with Charles, but when his mother calls, Erik becomes convinced that she is trying to ruin his life.





	the heart wants what it wants.

Erik loved his mother, really he did, but sometimes he wished that his mother had been someone else. Because for as much as she proclaimed that she only wanted her little boy to be happy, she utterly refused to acknowledge the things that actually made him happy. She'd had all these grand plans during his childhood of him becoming a lawyer, just like his father and his grandfather and generation after generation of male family members before that, and he'd shattered those by first majoring in creative writing at university, and then by not signing up for law school so that he could spend the time writing his book. And it didn't matter that the book ended up being published, or that the dedication at the front was to her and only her, or that it sold thousands upon thousands of copies, or that it got him a guest appearance on her favorite talk show, she was going to spend the rest of her life upset about the fact that he wasn't a lawyer. Erik certainly hadn't helped matters when he came home one weekend during his first year away at university, and sat down on the sofa and carefully recited the speech that he'd spent a good three years writing, because he knew he had to get it perfect the first time or she would never speak to him again. And ever since that moment, even though she'd never actually said it to his face, Erik had known that she feels responsible for the fact that he was gay, like she didn't raise him properly when he was a child and therefore this was life's way of punishing her for being a bad mother, and her way of dealing with the fact that she could not deal with it was to pretend they never had that conversation on the sofa and to persist with asking if he'd found a nice, pretty girl to settle down with. And it was bound to cause him problems someday because it took a very specific, very delicate type of patience to deal with someone like his mother.

On the third of October, the problems that had been brewing in the background of his life for the past five years finally broke through the barriers and started to wreak havoc. And of all the days for it to happen, Erik would spend the rest of his life cursing the fact that it happened on the third of October. The third of October was supposed to be a special occasion, the type of anniversary that deserved to be celebrated in some sort of proper way, like going back to the club where they had first met and then stumbling back to the apartment drunk out of their minds and fucking on the sofa in the living room, just like they had done on that same night a year earlier. The third of October should have been some sort of a symbol, the sort of moment where they acknowledged the fact that the relationship that had built up between them had gone way beyond the fun fling it started out as, not necessarily with promises for the future or anything like that, but with them just admitting that they really didn't want to be without each other. After all, the third of October meant that it had been exactly a year since Erik's apartment had become their apartment, and it meant that it had been two years, three months, and twelve days since the night they had first met, in the club that they should have been going to on that very night to celebrate all of that. Instead, the third of October was quickly becoming the day that Erik's mother finally ruined his life. 

He was standing in the doorway of their bedroom and watching as Charles stalked around the room, throwing his belongings towards the open suitcase on the bed. And Charles was silent, completely silent, not responding at all to the questions Erik was posing to him, not even making the smallest of noises, and for someone who was normally as animated and vocal as Charles, the silence could be nothing but a bad sign. Erik reached out and caught Charles by the elbow as he walked past the doorway, and the venomous glare that he got certainly had to be another bad sign, but he wasn't about to let Charles continue to give off the impression that he was leaving Erik without at least making an effort to stop him. And that's when Charles finally sighed and bitterly spat out the one sentence that made the scene before him make perfect sense to Erik. 

“Your mother called.”

In the two years, three months, and twelve days since they had met, Charles had not acquired that very specific, very delicate type of patience that was required to deal with Edie Lehnsherr. The first time Charles had ever spoken to her on the phone had caused one of the biggest fights they'd ever had, and then there was the disaster that had been the first time Erik had brought Charles to one of the family dinners, which took three weeks and the most expensive meal at the fanciest restaurant Erik had ever experienced to fix, but the one that had hurt the most was when it became apparent that she was not going to acknowledge that Charles was more than just Erik's new roommate, and the aftermath of that visit from his mother remains the only time he's ever seen Charles cry. The relationship between his lover and his mother was heavily strained at the best of times, and so Erik could only imagine how well this latest conversation had gone. His mother had clearly called at a time when she knew that Erik wasn't going to be home – she knew he was having a signing at the new mega bookstore downtown, and she knew that it was the third of October at eleven a.m. – and he was really worried about what sort of damage his mother had done this time. 

“Your father is finally retiring from the law practice and she's throwing a party. You're invited.” 

“And you're not.”

“Of course I'm not. She's inviting all of his family and friends, and she made it very clear that I don't fit either one of those descriptions.”

He really should have seen this situation coming, now that it had arrived and smacked him straight in the face. His father had been hinting about retirement for a few months, and there was no way that there was not going to be a party to celebrate said retirement, and there was no one other than his mother that would have ever been in charge of organizing it. And of all the days to call up Charles and drive home the point that she didn't consider him part of the family, she picked the third of October, a day that she knew was important to their relationship, because even though she'd acted like she wasn't paying attention, Erik knew that she was listening when he told her about the fact that he and Charles had made it to the one-year-of-living-together mark, and about how happy he was that they had. So despite silently apologizing to his mother right before even thinking it, Erik couldn't help wondering when his mother had become such a bitch.

“Then I'm not going.”

And Erik really fucking meant that too. He was ridiculously tired of trying to balance his relationship with Charles with his relationship with his mother, and though he'd hoped and prayed that the situation would resolve itself and it wouldn't come to this, that hadn't happened and something had to give, and there was no fucking way he was going to let that something be the man standing in front of him. So he pulled hard on Charles's elbow and crushed their lips together when Charles was close enough, but that lasted for all of about five seconds before Charles shoved him away and stalked back towards the suitcase.

“Yeah, right. The chances of you not going to this party are about as good as the chances of John not taking me out to get smashed tonight after I show up on his doorstep.” 

And that was when Erik snapped because it was the fucking third of fucking October and there was no fucking way that Charles was going to spend the fucking night with John. No fucking way. John and Bobby lived in fucking Boston, for fuck's sake. He wasn't letting Charles go to fucking Boston on the fucking third of fucking October when it was supposed to be one of their pseudo-anniversaries. So he pulled his phone out from his pocket and scrolled through the contacts list while walking towards the bed, and he flipped the suitcase shut and sat down on top of it while the call was connecting, and when his mother answered the phone, he very calmly and tactfully told her that while she refused to acknowledge Charles as anything more than just his friend, Charles was a lot more than that, and a massive part of his life, and if she was going to continue acting like that wasn't true, then he didn't see a need to continue being a part of her life. He ended the call before his mother could say anything, and then he turned the phone off for good measure, because he was sure the moment she regained her voice that she'd be calling to yell at him, and then he looked up at Charles.

“I told you, I'm not going.” 

Charles looked like he'd just taken a surprise blow to the stomach, and Erik got really worried because fucking hell, he'd just essentially told his mother to fuck off and he couldn't take losing Charles on top of that. But then Charles broke out into a huge smile, and Erik barely got in the sigh of relief before Charles was climbing onto the bed and onto him and settling himself in Erik's lap on top of the suitcase, and really they were going to crush the thing, but once Charles slid his hands under Erik's shirt and kissed him hard, Erik didn't care. All he knew was that he had made Charles really happy for probably the first time in a long time, and sex in the middle of the afternoon was definitely a good way to be spending the third of October.


End file.
